By now, anyone who watches Test cricket has an idea what kind of person Scott Boland is. Quiet, self-effacing, at home with his work but never with the attention that accompanies it. While Australian crowds have enjoyed the teenage flashiness of Sam Konstas since his all-dancing debut, there is a deeper swell of appreciation, even love, for the fast bowler who gets cheered back to the fence every time he changes fielding position, and responds with a flicker of a smile or a raised hand that is half acknowledgment, half apology.
Being chosen as an unlikely hero was less of a surprise during his three Melbourne Tests, as a home town Victorian, but the same has now been the case in Sydney on both of his forays to the SCG. On day one of the fifth Test against India on Friday, it was Boland as crowd favourite again, nearly finding himself on a hat-trick in the first session, nearly completing a hat-trick in the third, and finishing the best of the bowlers with four for 31 while knocking over India for 185.
A couple of milestones arrived for Boland. First, his 50th Test wicket, a modest marker but one that separates the brief ventures into Test cricket from the substance that can be called a career. It is a number that has often seemed unlikely for Boland: at 32 years old before his first call-up; after a tough match at Nagpur and a tougher one at Leeds in 2023; or as recently as a couple of weeks ago, when he had spent 18 months on the bench behind a perennially fit Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Josh Hazlewood. Opportunities for Boland have been doomed to be occasional, even after his devastating Ashes debut and a decisive World Test Championship final performance.
The other milestone was his 2,000th delivery, the cutoff to be counted on statisticians’ lists for career figures. Boland is taking his wickets at 18 runs apiece, a mark bettered by only a dozen bowlers ever. Ten of those played before the first world war: the others are Bert Ironmonger from the 1930s and Frank Tyson from the 1950s. This is not just a feelgood story about a modest Aussie toiler getting a modest reward. It is about someone operating at the highest level of the highest level. Boland’s numbers after his debut were wild, but the increased sample size has not much diminished them.
Boland’s career has been a lesson in humility. He played state cricket in an era when the MCG barely stirred, with occasional forays down the road where the Junction Oval was its only competitor in somnolence. His answer was relentless accuracy. For a time around 2016 he transferred that to yorker bowling with the white ball, teaming up with John Hastings to turn the last four overs of each Melbourne Stars innings a parade of 24 balls on the return crease. Both briefly ended up in national white-ball teams. Discarded, Boland reported back for duty at the MCG.
Years on, after all that toil, Test cricket turned around and gave him something different. Brought in as a workhorse, Boland’s career at the top has been defined by wickets in bursts. The most stunning part of his Test adventure has been the way he can explode.
On Friday, when he had Yashasvi Jaiswal caught at gully by the debutant Beau Webster, it made the seventh time that Boland has struck in his first over of an innings. It looked like becoming eight when Virat Kohli edged to slip, but Steve Smith’s parry to Marnus Labuschagne was ruled out by the third umpire.
If it is not the first over, it is the first spell: of the aforementioned 50 Test wickets, 21 have come in that period. Then even when he gets into subsequent spells, he strikes early in those: 12 wickets total in the first over of any spell, 15 in the second over, 10 in the third, accounting for most of his tally. There must be something about his style that is especially difficult to face before players become accustomed.
So many of those early strikes go on to return multiple wickets in an over. His debut in Melbourne exploded by taking out Joe Root and Jack Leach in one evening, then Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson the next day. In Adelaide against West Indies he got Kraigg Braithwaite, Shamarh Brooks, and Jermaine Blackwood in his first over of an innings. Against South Africa in Brisbane he took two in an over in both innings. In the World Test Championship chase, Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja in one over.
Five different times he has taken two or three wickets in consecutive overs, and would have made that six times in Sydney if not for a dropped catch.
His attempt at three wickets in three balls in this match was as close as anyone could get without completing it. Rishabh Pant donated the first wicket with a half-hearted pull, no foot movement and no balance as he dinked it to mid-on, but the scoring suffocation that Boland contributed to at 1.55 runs an over played its part. Nitish Kumar Reddy was fresh off his Melbourne century but out first ball, unable to cope with the steep bounce that Boland extracted while the ball moved away.
Left-hander to right-hander to left-hander, but Boland has rarely had trouble landing one on the spot at the first time of asking. The ball to Washington Sundar decking in, passing the edge so closely they might have whispered to one another, while climbing even more absurdly, making the batter flinch away, ending up in front of the wicketkeeper’s face. Alex Carey dropped it, but let us not dwell on that.
Boland, who has had to content himself with life on the margins, was once again so close. Then he resumed his bashful demeanour, took his cap, and walked into the face of a mighty ovation to become again the solitary figure at fine leg. Bathed in affirmation, offering a tiny wave, too shy for the attention even after being one millimetre away from a Test hat-trick.
